Grounded in Orbit
by The-Music-of-hands
Summary: Vegeta learns a lesson about family, and pride.


**Grounded in Orbit**

There was no way to tell what time it would've been, on her planet. But for Vegeta, it was early morning.

Half dressed and still half asleep, the deep blue plush fabric of a bathrobe settled on the tense angles of his shoulders, a clear glass with the last bit of his orange juice held loosely in one hand. Yawning along with the control rooms automatic voices, he listened to them chime out coordinates in different tones, waking the last remnant waves of sleepiness that slowly crept away from his heavy eyelids and into the threads of aching muscles, spent from hours of vigorous training.

The earth sun shone ever the same, a fiery golden star burning bright into the darkness and illuminating his bronzed form; the golden radiation flashing in his eyes while he stood in front of a massive control panel. His arms crossed stoically as he stared blankly into the vacuity of space, a three day old cappuccino sitting on the dash, stagnant and cold. Frustration continued to build like a knot inside of his chest, tense irrationalities straining against his normally rock hard logic in an emotional battle that had left him mentally exhausted days ago. He had been orbiting the planet for seven days, and yet he had not moved from his position, vying for silently circling their persistent energy signals instead. The Woman...and her brat. The child's signal called out to him stubborn and strong, reeking of hidden power. It had been, the entire time.

No matter how far into the galaxy he traveled, it persisted, slipping through the tightly wound securities he had long built around himself. It was the reason for his ascension, the cause for his increase in power.

His son... The heir to a throne that didn't even exist. A prince to the king of no survivors.

He didn't not know why he had come back, he especially didn't know why he couldn't find the will to leave. The image of her floated always in the back of his mind, taunting him with gentle words and the memory of her hard eyes and soft curves. He hated that.

Mostly though, all he knew at the current moment was that his cappuccino machine had somehow broken down, leaving him without the slightly foamed coffee drink he'd become so accustomed to in the mornings, effectively bringing his usual routine to a grinding halt. He couldn't think without having his morning coffee fix—that alone explained why he was stuck orbiting the miserable planet that his also miserable woman decided to inhabit.

It was broken, and despite his expansive knowledge of technology, he did not know how the caffeinated contraption worked. Unfortunately for him, he only knew one man who could fix it.

The man who had built it.

Sighing deeply, he mentally prepared himself for the human interaction he was about to willingly engage himself in, the stress of the last few days weighing on his level of sanity. "Let's just get this over with..." He grumbled irritably to the display of buttons and controls set out on the panel in front of him.

Hesitantly, he pushed the power button for the telecommunication system, subtly clearing his throat while the screen switched from a speckled static to the clear image of a man slumped on his desk, drool pooling beneath his sagging chin as he mumbled incoherently in his sleep. The intercom beeped, and he stared at the old man, raising an eyebrow in annoyance as he watched him sleep through the numerous alarms going off in the distance.

He snorted in repulsed disdain, rolling his eyes until he saw the dull throbbing of red.

This was pathetic!

There he was, a Saiyan Prince drifting alone in space with hardly any food left to his name, stalking a planet inhabited by morons in a worn outdated gravity machine that no longer defied gravity—and his only wearable wardrobe a dirty green robe that wasn't destined for anywhere other than the trash bin. To make matters worse, he'd broken his comb in a fit of frustration because before that, he'd run out of the cleaning solution he'd grown accustomed to using for his hair. He smelled, and he needed a cappuccino.

In other words: Vegeta was a pitiful wreck of a Prince.

Busy wallowing in his misery, he sighed, his stomach grumbling haplessly. He hated being hungry, it transformed him into one of the only things he could not stand— a weakling. He put one hand to his abdomen gingerly as it grumbled weakly one last time, a dull ache knotting his insides like string.

It was then, that he lost it. "Wake up, old man...!" he snarled loudly, watching the man on the screen with expectant anticipation. When he failed to wake up, Vegeta growled angrily and snatched the monitor, shaking it with his hands. "OLD MAN! YOU ARE NEEDED!" he shouted loudly, spraying spittle over the microphone in a rare display of emotion.

The 'old man', who happened to be Bulma's Father— Bulma being one of the main reasons Vegeta was opting for a permanent life in space—fell out of the borders of the screen with a yelp, eyes wide with astonishment.

"Oh my!" he cried as he tumbled off his chair.

Grinding his teeth angrily, Vegeta waited as patiently as he could for the elderly man to right himself, his bare feet tapping with impatience against the cold steel floor of the ship.

He couldn't believe he was there, waiting for that spoiled princess' father to come to his aid like a puppy waiting for its master to open the door. Where had his steel like resolve and his boundless pride gone? Had he lost it in the depths of space, too busy training to notice? Or had that she-devil stolen that from him as well? With that thought in mind, he scowled, glaring at the screen as Bulma's father adjusted a pair of tiny glasses on the bridge of his nose with one hand, the other busy turning the alarms offline. A familiar black kitten clung to his jacket. It mewled curiously at the image scowling before it.

Vegeta glared scathingly at the inferior feline, unconsciously biting his lip with his canines.

"Well well, you startled me quite a bit, young man. It has been some time since I've seen your face. What is it that I can do for you this afternoon?" the old man tittered with a smile.

So it was midday then, the Prince deduced quietly to himself. That meant he had a better chance of avoiding her, and even a better chance of completing his task. He took a breath and steeled himself.

"I... I do not have the required abilities to fix this—" annoyed, he swept his arm out to gesture irritatingly at the obviously broken cappuccino machine, "stupid machine. I have tried everything. I plugged it in. I unplugged it. I put the dehydrated mixture into its slot, I took it out of its slot... Nothing I do will work. So, fix it!"

With that said, Vegeta strode across the room and grabbed the machine, walking back and dropping it unceremoniously in front of the large monitor. The old man just stared with amused bewilderment.

"Well I'll see what I can do," he deadpanned at last.

The least I can do is reason out what the problem is... But fixing it will be another matter entirely.."

The Prince pressed his lips into a thin line, repressing the growing anger that blossomed in his stomach by folding his arms across his broad chest. He watched with scrutiny as the professor squinted his eyes in concentration before muttering an unintelligible conclusion.

"Well son, I can tell you what's wrong...but-"

Vegeta interjected sharply, eyes narrowing. "But what?!"

Doctor Briefs chuckled lightly, ignoring the Saiyan's abrupt interruption "Well it seems as though your percolator has calcified. You can tell just by looking at the tube located on the left side. Actually, I should have known better than to use this model in the ship... they have a habit of calcifying very quickly unless you maintain them on a week to week basis. It's mostly because of the recycled water that is kept onboard."

Growling, Vegeta wrinkled his nose in distaste. "Well what can you do about it? Is there a spare..." he paused at the foreign word, formulating the sounds before voicing them, "...percolator...?"

"No," Doctor Briefs stated factually. "Though I do have a spare here at Capsule Corp... If you would like to come back and have me repair it for you..." he suggested.

With that, Vegeta exploded, his aura turning a deep violet. In a fit of anger, he swept the cappuccino machine off the dash, and didn't move a muscle when it smashed against a steel wall, broken bits scattering around his feet. The professor stared, not moving except to lick his lips, waiting for a response.

"Why should I go back, old man?"

"You know perfectly well the reasons why," The Professor declared, eyes set with sobriety. "and I would assume that a young man with a brain like yours already knows that it's not for the repair of the cappuccino machine."

The younger man glared stubbornly,"I know no such reasons. Pray tell, what are they? And why are they reason enough to go back to a place I never belonged to in the first place?"

"Because you have a family who is waiting for you to come back to them."

Vegeta let out a sharp bark of laughter, "Ha! What family do you speak of? Nothing awaits me there but failure! Nothing but the trodden pride of a failed race. I am nothing, I have nothing waiting for me, if and when I return! The only thing I have is my power, and what is power if not to use it? These are the only things I know!"

Sighing deeply, the old man massaged his eyes tiredly with one hand, the other supporting himself as he leaned on the ledge that the large monitor sat on.

"Not only do you have my daughter, whom you _know _loves you, but you also have a child too," the professor offered with one hand held out.

Scoffing, the Saiyan smoothed a few strays hairs, trying to calm himself. His feet shifted unsteadily. "What will I teach my brat? To be a killer? Shall I teach him how to properly go about committing genocide?!" He cried, desperation lacing his uncharacteristic outburst. The professor looked on soberly, waiting for him to finish. "What will I do with your daughter? I will not be the perfect mate she desires, I am a killer. I do not know how to be anything else!"

The Prince waited for a response, his bare feet clenching against the cold floor, hands quivering with spikes of hot shame.

Softly, Bulma's Father spoke, picking his words with wisdom. "If you did not know how to be anything else than a killer," he reasoned, "you would not have come back to this planet, Vegeta."

There was silence.

"If I come back to her... What will she think of me...? I left her and the child I sired, all for selfish reasoning..." Vegeta inhaled shakily. "She will loathe me... More so than I loathe myself."

"My son, if there is one thing I know about my daughter, is that she does not loathe you. Anger may be one of her strong suits, but loathing..." he sighed, "loathing is beyond her. And if you were doing this out of selfish reasoning, why are you even here?"

Vegeta glared at the screen, eyes flashing from chocolate to turquoise before reverting back to their original color. His muscles flexed, tense and ready. His heart would not still, beating like a drum inside of his chest. He wouldn't have been surprised if it burst out of his chest and plopped messily to the floor.

He imagined the blood on the steel ground, and steadied himself, containing the shout of anger that tied his throat into knots. With a deadly calm, he stared straight into the professors eyes, daring him to look away.

The old man did not disappoint, staring back with an equal intensity.

"I am _not _your son!" The Prince snapped, his full lips curling back over viciously sharp fangs.

Professor Briefs sighed once more, pinching the bridge of his nose in an effort to dissuade the oncoming migraine. "You may not be my son..." he stated solemnly, "but you _do _have one..." Slowly, he reached into a drawer in his desk, ruffling through papers before he grabbed the one he was looking for. Silently, he turned it around to face Vegeta, the picture of a young baby with aqua eyes and the professors violet hair gazing fiercely into the distance, a stuffed monkey clutched tightly in one tiny fist.

Vegeta held his breath, staring into the image with an intensity that rivaled the subject of said picture.

"That is my son..." He stated unsteadily.

"Yes. This is your son."

The professor smiled gently, before putting the picture away in the drawer, his eyes rising up to meet Vegeta's with a seriousness the younger man had never fathomed to be in the elder.

"He is a _Prince_," Doctor Brief's declared, "But that will never come to be, if he does not have a King to raise him up in the proper way..." he coughed, "He will never know what it is to be royalty, unless..."

"Unless what?"

Bulma's father stared at Vegeta straight in the eye, his collected voice never wavering under the heavy glare of the Saiyan. "Unless he has a King to show him."

Nervously, the Prince of Saiyans shifted. "I will never be King..." he protested.

"You're right, Vegeta. You will never be King of anything with that attitude. You must come back, and make right of your wrongdoings." the old man stifled a yawn, "you must teach your son honer, and loyalty. You much teach him how to protect and how to be strong..."

"But I am none of those!"

"Because you sit here, you are loyal. Because you have ascended to protect the ones you love, you are honorable, and because of those reasons, you are the strongest in the universe. Now is the time to prove it!"

Tired from his outburst, Doctor Briefs yawned loudly, fixing his eyes on Vegeta's frozen form and not once noticing the slight lumpy shadows hovering nervously in the doorway behind him. He held his resolve as a heavy silence perforated the air, the moment thick with tension while the younger man narrowed his eyes and bit his lower lip hard enough to draw out a beady red orb of blood. The Doctor looked on, trying to focus on the drop of wetness before his vision blurred with tiredness, his dulled senses failing to notice as the shadow came to reveal a woman with one hip jutted out to hold the child she supported in her arms, the little boy's hands clutching tightly to his mother's shirt as he slept soundly—his son.

Vegeta however, had noticed the change in the elderly Brief's room immediately, and the breath left his chest quickly as the muscles in his legs wavered for a brief weak moment, his instinctual pride taking hold and locking them stiffly into place before he was found out.

It took her three seconds to scan her fathers unusually stiff form and then another three to see the man standing before her in the Vid Screen.

Ten more passed successfully in silence before she opened her mouth to speak, a desperate keen emanating from her throat.

"...! ….Aannggh!? you...I... what...?! You...? ...!"" she stammered helplessly, mouth gaping wide, opening and closing like a fish out of water.

Vegeta held his ground, swallowing down the nausea that crept its way into his stomach and up his esophagus. Why was he so damn dizzy?! He ignored it, focusing his blurry mind and concentrating on her astounded face.

"Me." he stated expressionlessly, crossing his arms across his chest, obviously annoyed that she had appeared.

Her face bloomed red with rage, and she lunged for the monitor, sleeping baby held precariously in one arm as the other was aimed for the screen, clawing wildly. Bulma's Father barely had time to restrain her arms before she crashed into the desk snarling and hissing like a feline.

"What the _fuck_ do you think you're doing, Vegeta?!"

"Talking to your father, Woman, what does it look like?"

"I've tried to communicate with your damned ship for over a month now, and I've gotten no response, no sign of anything, and now you decide to contact my FATHER above all people?! What the hell, you idot?!"

"Because he seems to be the only living human being with a brain on your miserable excuse of a planet!" he shot back, eyes flashing with anger. His stomach rumbled loudly, but he ignored it completely, concentrating instead on her red angry characteristics and the contrastive features of the calmly sleeping baby held in her arms. Sighing deeply, his mind raced with jumbled thoughts and emotions. This was not what he'd been wanting to happen, or expect, and now not only did he have to deal with that damn blasted harpy of a woman, but also her son and his immediate Grandfather... Why him, of all people?! Why then, of all times?!

Vegeta knew only one thing, and that was: he was one unlucky bastard.

Bulma huffed, and cleared her throat loudly, fixing her eyes stonily on the screen before her. "Why are you just standing there, what could you be waiting for?!" tears glittered, teetering dangerously close to the corners of her eyes, threatening to spill over as she fought to control her trembling lips, "heaven knows I've been waiting!" she exclaimed furiously.

Vegeta lost it, the weight of every day that he'd been gone from them smashing down on his already heightened emotions. Powering up, a fierce golden light surrounded the air around him, his fingertips crackling with unbidden energy.

"why would you wait for me?!" he cried loudly, the feedback of his frazzled voice buzzing on the speakers, "Wait for a man who left you alone to defend yourself and your child? Wait for this killer? This man who can purge a fully populated planet with his eyes closed? Why?!"

"Now, now the both of you," Professor Brief's chided quietly, "It's not good to argue in front of the child."

Bulma opened her mouth to retort, but closed it, controlling the bubbling flood of angry words. She stepped back defensively, as her Father stood motionlessly to the side, suddenly nervous as she readjusted the now wakened baby Trunks, his deep blue eyes peering curiously at the image of the angry Saiyan before him. He blinked and stared.

"Duhgubeta?" he questioned simply to Vegeta.

The Prince raised one eyebrow, while Bulma gasped at the child in her arms who was staring forward without an ounce of hesitation. "Duhgubeta, yeh." baby Trunks affirmed steadily, eyes cool and hard with seriousness.

He stared at Vegeta. Vegeta stared back, his arms crossed firmly against his chest. "What...?

"That's how he says your name," Bulma spoke softly, "I've taught him how..." Her eyes still glistened with aching sadness as she looked at her Saiyan prince. He shook with power when given that look, emotions conflicting wildly inside his head. Looking into Bulma's eyes, he glared fiercely, though the angry tinge had been replaced with a pliant softness that had not been there before. He didn't like admitting it to himself, but he was a man... he had to do it. Fuck pride, his Father would have never approved but hell... his father wasn't there. Inhaling deeply, he straightened his back, and firmly gripped his forearms tightly.

"I will fight the androids," he stated, now gazing at baby Trunks with a single-minded determination, "I will _destroy _them."

He glanced at Bulma's Father, nodding. "Thank you," he clipped, returning his eyes briefly to Bulma and Trunks before looking at her directly, paralyzing her with an intensifying stare. "You will not be disappointed, Bulma."

He didn't even bother giving her the time to reply before he shut the commlink off, sliding to the floor to calm his raging nerves. The only sounds besides his labored breathing were the familiar whirs and clicks of the engines cooling systems. He knew what he had to do. And it had to be done by the time the next morning was to come.

Silently he picked himself up, trudging to the ships navigation panel and wearily punching in the coordinates for a mountainous region located roughly a hundred miles away from Capsule Corp, setting the timer for later in the evening when hopefully, everyone would be sleeping. That way it would be easier for him to slip in and grab the armor he knew was waiting for him without being caught by the one thing he was trying to avoid.

Her.

He would go back on one condition, he thought to himself, confirming it firmly in his mind.

Vegeta was set on taking extreme care not see her or the child again, he would make certain of it. They would from then on be only a fragment of memory in his brain—or whatever was left of it by the end of the impending battle that loomed ahead of him. The child would never remember him, and eventually Bulma would forget about him, he was sure, sooner or later moving on to the next hunk of muscle that came her way. He tried to convince himself that he wasn't concerned in the slightest.

Settling down on the floor for a nap, Vegeta rested his chin on his chest and closed his eyes, willing himself to forget the image of the woman and his child standing in front of him, so close, but far enough away that they could never touch him.

He was sure that he'd never see them again.

But little did he know how wrong he was.

**_ ~eight hours later~_**

The Professor knew Vegeta was there, though he really hadn't done much to conceal himself very thoroughly.

It was true, he had no real ability in which to sense the ki signal that all of the warriors carried with them, but he had one advantage, that being having one of the most advanced security systems in the entire word installed in his house. There was nothing that did not pass the elderly Brief's computer screen, and Vegeta was not exempt from that, no matter how fast he thought he was.

He found him perched on the windowsill of the master bedroom that had been his quarters during his stay on earth, the armor that had waiting for him on the large bed having been already put on, a smelly bathrobe taking its place on rumpled sheets.

The room had not been cleaned since Vegeta's departure, Bulma having told all of the maids that they were to not touch it. It was his mess to clean, whenever he decided to come back and clean it, she had stated, and there would be penalties for anyone who entered.

But not even Bulma knew that he was there, only her Father who stood silently in the room staring at the Prince darkened by the shadows, as he in turn stared at the stars freckling the night sky.

The elder man cleared his throat. "So you decided to come back, huh?"

Vegeta snorted quietly, never once taking his steady gaze off of the stars. "What of it, old man?"

"I'm proud of you, son."

The Prince stiffened slightly at the name, his eyes narrowing. The old man sensed the tension, but continued to talk slowly, his voice calm and steady. "You will protect them yes?" he requested softly. Vegeta stared, but listened patiently as the man continued. "Nobody else can," he pleaded, "So please...you will protect them?"

Vegeta grunted with rough acceptance and looked back at the professor before slipping silently out of the open window and into the shadows. _"I will, or I die..."_

His last words echoed in the room, landing with a finality in the old mans ears.

The old man smiled and began to walk out of the room, mouth stretching wide with a tired yawn. "Good job son," mumbled to the empty hallways.

"Welcome home."

0_0

**A/N**

**Wow. It's been a very long time since I've been on this site, and this is the first time I've written for the DBZ fandom. My husband actually got me into DBZ a while back, and ever since, I've been literally obsessed with the relationship between Vegeta and Bulma. This short story was modeled after a prompt I made for myself to, well... stop procrastinating. **

**The prompt was: "Coffee, Grounds, and Angst." **

**I think I covered that pretty well. Also, I know Bulma's Dad really doesn't play a main role in a lot of stories I read on here, so I decided to give him a little credit. After all, this is Fanfiction, haha. **

**I don't own Dragonball Z, nor its characters. **

**Otherwise, I really hope that this writing streak continues! I have many more plans for Bulma and Vegeta, and we can only hope, that with time my writing gets better, as does their relationship ;D**

**Thank you for reading, lemme know what you think.**

**~TMoh**


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